Leading designers have teamed with some of London’s most prominent cultural influencers to create furniture pieces in American red oak.

The Legacy project is the latest instalment in the American Hardwood Export Council’s major promotional programme to raise the profile of the most abundant US hardwood; highlighting its creative potential, technical performance and environmental credentials.

The project forms part of the London Design Festival (LDF) and the finished furniture will feature in a special exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum throughout the event in September.

LDF chairman Sir John Sorrell has been closely engaged and helped involve other cultural leaders. Each was asked to come up with concepts for a ‘legacy’ piece reflecting their own and their various institutions’ values and aspirations. They then worked with designers to develop the finished furniture, to be made at Benchmark Furniture under the guidance of the company’s co-founder Sean Sutcliffe.

Sir Ian Blatchford, director of the Science Museum Group is working with designer Marlene Huissoud; Tristram Hunt, director of the V&A with Jasper Morrison; Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of The Serpentine Galleries, with Nina Tolstrup and Jack Mama of Studio Mama; Alex Beard, chief executive officer of the Royal Opera House, with Terence Woodgate: Amanda Nevill, chief executive officer of the British Film Institute, with Sebastian Cox; Tamara Rojo, artistic director of the English National Ballet, with Martino Gamper; Maria Balshaw, director of Tate, with Max Lamb; Iwona Blazwick, director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, with Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay of Raw Edges; Kwame Kwei-Armah, artistic director of the Young Vic, with Tomoko Azumi; and Sir John Sorrell himself with Juliet Quintero.

“AHEC is always pushing the boundaries for American hardwoods and we wanted to create a project that celebrates the use of red oak to demonstrate not just how beautiful it is for furniture making, but also to test the performance and quality of this abundant wood,” said David Venables, AHEC’s European director. “It’s a fabulous project with incredible designers. We can’t wait to see what emerges from these unique collaborations.”

This year, AHEC has turned its marketing and market development focus particularly strongly on red oak, which, while it comprises a third of the US hardwood forest and is in strong demand elsewhere, is still relatively underutilised in Europe. The result is its ‘Oak Redefined’ campaign.

One of the Legacy designers, Sebastian Cox, earlier created a showcase piece, the circular Blushing Bar in the species. He ingeniously pressure injected the timber with red calligraphy ink so that it worked its way to the surface to pick out the grain (TTJ May 2019). The finished piece made a splash in the Wallpaper Handmade show at this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan.

AHEC also worked with Benchmark to put red oak through its joinery paces alongside European and American white oak. The result will be a comparative performance report, and initially AHEC has said that red oak matched the other species in most respects and surpassed it in others.

The organisation has also worked with leading Polish designer maker Tomek Rygalik, who is bringing out a red oak collection.

Under its campaign, AHEC is also highlighting the legality and sustainability assurance tools behind red oak, and other hardwood species. These include its American Hardwood Environmental Profile export documentation and interactive map at www. americanhardwood.org, which underlines the continuing growth of the US hardwood forest.

The new edition of the in-depth Seneca Creek Report, addressing the legality assurance and sustainability of American hardwoods has also just been launched.

Underpinned by these resources, Mr Venables believes ‘Legacy’ will take its red oak messaging to a new level and audience. “It will be a key aspect of our ‘Oak Redefined’ mission and is set to generate huge media, professional, trade and public interest,” he said.